Oops is now a scientific term

The New York Times has an article by Andrew Revkin about the lack of agreement among scientists about ice:

A new analysis halves longstanding projections of how much sea levels could rise if Antarctica’s massive western ice sheets fully disintegrated as a result of global warming. The flow of ice into the sea would probably raise sea levels about ten feet rather than twenty feet, according to the analysis, published in the 15 May issue of the journal Science.
The scientists also predicted that seas would rise unevenly, with an additional eighteen inch increase in levels along the east and west coasts of North America. That is because the shift in a huge mass of ice away from the South Pole would subtly change the strength of gravity locally and the rotation of the Earth, the authors said.
Several Antarctic specialists familiar with the new study had mixed reactions to the projections. But they and the study’s lead author, Jonathan Bamber of the Bristol Glaciology Center in England, agreed that the odds of a disruptive rise in seas over the next century or so from the buildup of greenhouse gases remained serious enough to warrant the world’s attention.
They also uniformly called for renewed investment in satellites measuring ice and field missions that could, within a few years, substantially clarify the risk. There is strong consensus that warming waters around Antarctica, and Greenland in the Arctic, will result in centuries of rising seas. But glaciologists and oceanographers still say uncertainty prevails on the vital question of how fast coasts will retreat in a warming world in the next century or two.
The new study combined computer modeling with measurements of the ice and the underlying bedrock, both direct and by satellite. It did not assess the pace or the likelihood of a rise in seas. The goal was to examine as precisely as possible how much ice could flow into the sea if warming seawater penetrated between the West Antarctic ice sheet and the bedrock beneath.
For decades West Antarctic ice has been identified as particularly vulnerable to melting because, although piled more than one mile above sea level in many places, it also rests on bedrock a half mile to a mile beneath sea level in others. That topography means that warm water could progressively melt spots where ice is stuck to the rock, allowing it to flow more freely.
Erik Ivins, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, described the new paper as “good solid science,” but added that the sea-level estimates could not be verified without renewed investment in satellite missions and other initiatives that were currently lagging. A particularly valuable satellite program called Grace, which measures subtle variations in gravity related to the mass of ice and rock, “has perhaps a couple of years remaining before its orbit deteriorates,” Dr. Ivins said. “The sad truth is that we in NASA are watching our Earth-observing systems fall by the wayside as they age— without the sufficient resources to see them adequately replaced.”
Robert Bindschadler, a specialist in polar ice at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said the study provided only a low estimate of Antarctica’s possible long-term contribution to rising seas because it did not deal with other mechanisms that could add water to the ocean. The prime question, he said, remains what will happen in the next century or so, and other recent work implies that a lot of ice can be shed within that time. “Even in Bamber’s world,” he said, referring to the study’s lead author, “there is more than enough ice to cause serious harm to the world’s coastlines.”

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